(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a transfer apparatus that transfers data, sent from an image-processing apparatus as represented by an MFP (Multi Function Peripheral), to a destination device, and an image-processing apparatus.
(2) Description of the Related Art
A system that transmits image data read by the MFP to a target device via a transfer apparatus, such as a mail server, has been used thus far. Among some transfer apparatuses, there is a model that encrypts the image data and transfers this encrypted image data in order to assure security.
The major load is applied to the transfer apparatus in order to perform encryption-processing since the volume of information of image data is generally as large as several MB (megabytes). Then for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2000-13614 proposes a technology used in the case of transferring medical image data. There, while patients' privacy is protected, the processing load of encryption is reduced by encrypting only additional data, such as names of patients, appended to the image data, and leaving the image data itself unencrypted.
However, image data, not only limited to medical images, may be transmitted via a network having high security risks, such as the Internet. In such a case, the above prior art provides protection of privacy, yet does not assure security since the image data itself is not encrypted. In other words, assuring security by encryption, which is the intended purpose of data-processing, is not always achieved.
In addition, another problem arises where uniform security-processing is performed on data transmitted via the Internet that has high security risks and data transmitted only via a LAN within a firewall where the security risks are low. In this case, security of transmission via the Internet is assured when the security level is raised (i.e. when intensive encryption-processing is carried out). However, the performance specification of the security-processing becomes excessive for data transmission only via a LAN, which results in an overload of the encryption-processing.
On the other hand, when the security level is lowered (i.e. when less intensive encryption-processing or no encryption-processing is carried out), the load of security-processing is lightened for data transmission only via a LAN. However, in the case of data transmission via the Internet, this results in an increase in security risks.
Not only on the security-processing but also much the same is true on image-processing like denoising process for image data. For example, a sender wants to transmit an image with low-level noise in the case when the receiver of the image data is a person outside the company, however the sender wants to transmit the image data promptly to a person inside the company even if the image has some noise. In such a case, if uniform image-processing is performed on image data, both to the internal and to the external, less intensive noise processing results in a poor image being sent to a person outside the company, while intensive noise processing leads to an overload of the image-processing.